Ancestry Adventures

[fitness1]

This one is pretty fitting too....thanks for the reminder, haven't heard it in years and used to love it!

[frankmcr]

There's various threads posted in Open Mic that I'm not interested in, but I don't bother posting in them to let people know I'm not interested.

[ewalling]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

There's various threads posted in Open Mic that I'm not interested in, but I don't bother posting in them to let people know I'm not interested.

When I said I didn't see the fascination with ancestry, I was curious why it does fascinate some.

[A Scot in Otley]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

On both sides we go back to the 1600s in the US, And one strand of roots goes back to 600, in France.

600 AD in France (or more accurately one of the Frankish kingdoms)!!! That's gobsmackingly interesting. How did they get back that far? Which king is it?

Fascinating stuff, but makes my head fall off. Thought about it a while back, only looked at my male line surname, and got back to 1840s on available birth certs, census, but even that was hard enough.

I recall a geneticist saying that we were all related to William the Conqueror, it's just that royalty have many more links to him. So, I thought that I am the descendant of my mother and father (2), and of each of their mothers and fathers (4), and each of their mothers and fathers (8) and so on ... By the time I got to a guess on generational procreational activity, I had around 15 million (can't recall ... but it was a lot) direct ancestors around the time of the Elthelred England ... or my namesake Malcolm II of Scotland. Now that can't be right, as the population wasn't anywhere near that in Britain at that period. I suppose plagues, wars etc wiped out many, not to mention overlapping descendents/ancestors, but still not sure how the maths work in this thing.

[Silly Moustache]

My father never EVER discussed anything about his past.
My mother once giot his sister tipsy and she mentioned that his father was killed during WW1, but in London.
All very mysterious. Some suspected that his father was up tono good,maybe a German spy (he was fluent in German and ran a translation business).

Some time ago,I started trying to research matters, after finding a short book about the "The First air raid on London. It was June 13th 1917.

My grandfather's day of death. Cause of death : decapitationed by bomb dropped by enemy airmen.

A friend did some research and discovered that the bomb was dropped on the roof of the building in which his office - "???? & Wahlberg - translators" had been. Our Family name was not Perry, but Wahlberg - originally from Gotland a Swedish island in the Baltic.

Our research uncovered a cousin that I had not known of and out of the blue I got a contact from a woman in Canada who had traced the line back to Napoleonic times (The Swedish line died out - Bernadotte assumed the crown).

Wahlberg was something of a "dodgy geezer" with an interest in younger girls. (My father 's mother was a very young daughter of his landlady).

The story goes on.

He had toleave Sweden (reason unknown) and sailed to the USA but was stopped at Ellis Island and shipped back to England. I have a copy of his "aliens's certificate".

[Pura Vida]

My wife and I got into ancestry about five years ago. My journey was to discover and locate my biological father. It took us nearly a year, but we found him, made a connection, and managed to meet in person last year (with my two kids).

Once I solved that puzzle, I didn't really pursue things further, but my wife has been building this insane family tree (over 14,000 people), most of which lived in central Pennsylvania.

Along the way, we both found some interesting journeys and quite a few scandals. My takeaway is that people were a lot more careless before anyone thought about DNA, haha.

[Silurian]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

On both sides we go back to the 1600s in the US, And one strand of roots goes back to 600, in France.

What do you mean by 'roots'? Tracing a direct lineage to 600AD is highly unlikely. The British Royal Family can only trace a direct link to the 9th century.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by ewalling

I've never understood the fascination with all this, to be honest. When I was growing up, I was interested to see a family photo of my maternal and paternal grandfathers' families when they were young men, but further back than that I'm really not very interested. What difference does it make?

I think it is something that kicks in as people age. In my case, I had no interest beyond my grandparents, but as my mother gained in age she became more interest in it. I got a free ride to the search through her. Also, believe it or not, my father's family has a family history association that publishes a magazine, has a website, and issues a Visa card! We never joined, but someone in the association was evangelistic about it and gave us a bunch of the magazines.

An interesting contrast to my family is my wife's: on one side they had no ancestors in the U.S. prior to the year 1900. On the other, there were none before 1920.

One interesting factoid regards my son, who was a machinist before he was promoted to supervisor, manager, and eventually director in his organization. Both of his grandmothers were born to machinists fathers, both specifically tool-and-die makers.

None of this matters a whit but is just interesting to know. It is almost like the characteristics of spruce top grain: for loud guitars you want wide, open grain; for quiet but responsive guitars you want tight, consistent grain. However, most of us usually notice the top grain after we play the guitar and are struck by the sound. It is like, "Yup, that makes sense."

Bob

[ewalling]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I think it is something that kicks in as people age. In my case, I had no interest beyond my grandparents, but as my mother gained in age she became more interest in it. I got a free ride to the search through her. Also, believe it or not, my father's family has a family history association that publishes a magazine, has a website, and issues a Visa card! We never joined, but someone in the association was evangelistic about it and gave us a bunch of the magazines.

An interesting contrast to my family is my wife's: on one side they had no ancestors in the U.S. prior to the year 1900. On the other, there were none before 1920.

One interesting factoid regards my son, who was a machinist before he was promoted to supervisor, manager, and eventually director in his organization. Both of his grandmothers were born to machinists fathers, both specifically tool-and-die makers.

None of this matters a whit but is just interesting to know. It is almost like the characteristics of spruce top grain: for loud guitars you want wide, open grain; for quiet but responsive guitars you want tight, consistent grain. However, most of us usually notice the top grain after we play the guitar and are struck by the sound. It is like, "Yup, that makes sense."

Bob

That's an interesting comment but a little surprising coming from an American. Rather than being masters and mistresses of our own fate, we are who we are largely as a result of our genes is what you seem to be suggesting: your son became a machinist at least partly because of genetic influence.

[Neil K Walk]

Personally I think Ancestry.com is a bunch of hooey. I'm of eastern and Mediterranean descent and only second generation US born so my heritage is enough of a mystery that I'm happy with a measure of anonymity.

If anything, I'm somewhat comforted by the idea that the AI's think I'm of Asian descent because my forebears changed/simplified our family name while fleeing the mother country*. You should hear some of the phishing voicemails I've gotten over the years or some of the flyers that I've gotten. Just for fun, I add to the confusion by watching a lot of Asian content on Netflix.

[RP]

I got into Ancestry.com after my son asked me what our "real" name was. Like many Russian Jewish families, nobody talked about the old country or even what our real surname was. Unspoken family lore was that Porter was shortened at Ellis Island from a longer Russian name. As it turns out Porter was changed from Portiansky, but my grandfather arrived through Philadelphia and the name was not officially changed until over 15 years after arrival in the US despite using the shortened version long before that....

[Dotneck]

Originally Posted by ewalling

When I said I didn't see the fascination with ancestry, I was curious why it does fascinate some.

I was adopted at birth. Never knew anything about my heritage until I turned 50 (about 20 years ago). At that I found my birth mother but she denied ever having a child (long story).

A few years ago I test my DNA and found my biological father's side of the family. My dad is 94 living in Arizona and I have six half-siblings. A huge family that was very welcoming. I visited them again last week and got to take in a couple spring training games in AZ too. About 15 siblings, neices & nephews went to a ball game with me last Monday.

I have built a huge tree of my bio family which also includes, by coincidence, my adopted family. My paternal side traces to Sicily and includes a number of relatives killed by gunshot wounds at a relatively early age. Tony Provenzano (Mob hitman and suspected killer of Jimmy Hoffa) is in there as well as John Scalish (Cleveland's Mob boss in the 70's).

Ancestry has changed my life.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by ewalling

That's an interesting comment but a little surprising coming from an American. Rather than being masters and mistresses of our own fate, we are who we are largely as a result of our genes is what you seem to be suggesting: your son became a machinist at least partly because of genetic influence.

I'm saying he may have had the benefit of genetic aptitude. By the way, his grandfather, my father, was an environmental scientist and environmental instrument prototyper who had a rather comprehensive grasp of materials, chemistry, and physics, and my son naturally has that aptitude as well. It is something that have a bit of.

However, my son started as a machinist. He has advance to be the director of a huge division in a huge organization. That managerial skill and the ability to sell himself in the organization are quite new to the bloodline, as far as I can see. My father was and I am, two of the worst people at selling ourselves that I've encountered. The mindset of considering all angles and being tediously fair tends to yield that. See my signature, below. By contrast, my son was born wearing a bowler hat, smoking a cigar, and barking orders. It has served him well.

Bob

[mjh42]

Ancestry/family genetic research can be interesting stuff.

My mother in law "found" a cousin who was "born out of wedlock" back in the day. He turned out to be a good guy. Deceased now.

Mother in law has also researched family origins back to the 1300's. Somebody was a secretary to a bishop at one time. Meaning they were educated and had money. Most relatives came from what might be known as peasant stock.

Couple of great uncles of hers served in the Civil War out of Wisconsin. One brother died. The other made it home and married his brothers widow. I've a photograph of him when he is an old man with a nice white beard.

Mothers cousin had done a lot of work on the maternal side. All the family have a cousin that until recently lived in the same house that the shared grandfather was born in. Likely other relatives as well. The old folks who knew each other are dyeing off.

Same goes for my late father in law. He has "know" relatives back in the old country. Run a "know" business. But again old ones dying off. Younger generations not as well connected.

Heck I can't keep track of my first cousins and their kids and I have a relatively small family.

My brother in law has over 100 first cousins. Lives in a far a community. Said if he passed many of them on the street today he would not know them.

Co-worker and I have maternal side with same sir name coming from same area of the old country. We are likely more closely related genetical than to random people. We likely share a common ancestor not too far back.

I've done 23 and me. I've haven't signed up for the connect me with everyone anybody.

Hindsight, while interesting and I have found a few markers to check up on, I would not recommend voluntarily giving your genetic information to anyone without limited and specific intent and purpose.

[Riverwolf]

Originally Posted by Neil K Walk

Personally I think Ancestry.com is a bunch of hooey.

The TV commercials are for sure.
They show people walking through rooms with poster size photos of long lost or unknown relatives.
It is nothing like that at all.
There is a ton of info but it takes a lot of work to sort it all out.